Leo Tolstoy
Anthony Briggs · 2005
Anthony Briggs's Penguin translation is the one I'd start with — modern, flowing, and the easiest way into a very long book. The one knock worth knowing: he gives some of the soldiers British colloquialisms that can feel oddly 20th-century. Minor against how readable the whole thing is, and Orlando Figes's afterword is a bonus. This is where I'd start.
Louise & Aylmer Maude · 1923
Louise and Aylmer Maude knew Tolstoy and translated with his blessing, and their version — revised and updated by Amy Mandelker for Oxford — is still the one many readers call the most faithful that's also pleasant to read. If you want the closest thing to an authorized War and Peace, this is it.
Pevear & Volokhonsky · 2007
Pevear and Volokhonsky stay close to the Russian and keep Tolstoy's French passages in French, with translations in the notes — which is how Tolstoy wrote it. Faithful and dense; some readers find it heavier going than Briggs or Maude. The choice if you want the texture of the original over smoothness.
Constance Garnett · 1904
Constance Garnett's century-old translation is out of copyright and free. It reads smoothly, in an older English, and it's how generations first read the book. Complete and free — a fine way to begin, knowing the newer translations are more accurate.
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